An affordable internet-connected video camera, but is it reliable?

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The Stem IZON 2.0 internet-connected camera features a 60-degree viewing angle, and records colour QVGA video at ten frames per second. It can be wall-mounted, but near a plug as it needs mains power.

It's easy to set up, and has some good features. It can detect motion or sound, triggering alerts on your iOS device, and you can lower the sensitivity if you get too many false alarms.

When an alert is triggered the camera records a 30-second clip, which is stored on the Stem Cloud service for free. The camera can upload 25 videos a day, which expire after seven days if unmarked, but you can save up to 100 clips. Video quality isn't outstanding, but it's clear enough to identify faces.

Viewing over Wi-Fi could be patchy, depending on your network. When it worked it was great, but sometimes there would be either an inexplicable error message, or it would just be unable to connect.

When tested over 3G the performance was a lot more solid. When viewing, you can only watch five minutes at a time, which might be annoying for you if you want to have it on constantly. There's also no way to save recordings to your local device.

But on the whole we quite liked this CCTV monitor, despite its limitations.